Mathieu van der Poel falls 700 metres short of a 174km breakaway stage victory at the Tour de France

A pair of sprint stages were hardly the thrilling fare fans might have expected at the Tour de France which route planners had drawn for this weekend, but on Sunday's ninth stage to Châteauroux, Mathieu van der Poel did at least bring some drama to proceedings.

The pan-flat 174.1km day, which featured no climbs, was livened up by an attack from the gun from Van der Poel and his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jonas Rickaert. It was not until 173.4km later that Van der Poel's day came to an end, an agonising 700 meters from the finish.

The pair had raced out front all day long, with Van der Poel picking up 20 sprint points at the early intermediate sprint before fighting what turned out to be a losing battle for the stage win on the run into Châteauroux.

Rickaert had given his all for his team leader by the 6km to go marker, leaving Van der Poel to race on solo in a defiant attempt to hold off the peloton and snatch a stage win from the sprinters.

Van der Poel's 30-second advantage quickly dwindled, but as the flamme rouge neared, he remained out front with a small advantage. But the road was just a touch too long for the Dutchman, the peloton a touch too fast.

In the end, Van der Poel was reabsorbed within sight of the line, leaving the peloton to set up a disorganised sprint finish won by Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) and Alpecin-Deceuninck to look back on what might have been.

The team dominated the opening weekend of the race, winning both stages with Van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen, and the pair will take five yellow jerseys home with them. On Sunday, however, a third stage victory proved a little too tough to capture.

After the stage, Rickaert revealed that his career ambition had been to step on a Tour de France podium. After mentioning it to Van der Poel before the stage, an idea was born.

The Belgian was awarded the combativity prize for his efforts, so, even if another stage win wasn't to be, in that sense at least, it was mission accomplished for the breakaway duo.

"I think I'll go home tomorrow. My Tour is done," Rickaert joked with the television cameras after the finish.

"No, no. I always wanted to be on the Tour podium, so I made a joke of it that we'd go with two from the start. But it seems he was serious, so we just continued, and I was slowly dying. We tried and too bad that we didn't succeed."

"I think we did [put on a show]. I think every sports director who passed me gave the thumbs up, so it seems like we did a good effort."

Speaking to Eurosport after the stage, Van der Poel confirmed that the plan was to help his Rickaert win the combativity award.

"I discussed with Jonas that we wanted to go for it today. His dream is to be on the Tour de France podium, so I was happy to help him get combativity. I hope they give it to him," he said.

"I'm really happy. That was one of his dreams. In the end, we came really close, but I think we were both just on the limit. It was a very hard day."

"The roads were not really helping with two riders in front, and of course, with the wind, we knew the GC teams would come back at certain moments. It's hard to not be able to finish it off, but we put on a good show today."

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